Home Fashion

“We need to buy more clothes for the kids,” I told Tracey after baths tonight.

Her face registered both joy and shock. Joy, I assume, because of the prospect of shopping, and shock because we have cupboards full of plastic containers full of dresses, skirts, shirts and shorts.

We buy kids’ clothes whenever Target, K-Mart, Big W or Pumpkin Patch has a sale and ferret them away. We rarely pay even half the recommended retail for any item. So when someone jumps up a size in this house we box anything still wearable in their existing wardrobe and grab down the next box marked with the correct size and gender.

We save a small, Dora branded fortune.

So Tracey did think it was odd when I suggested we needed to rush out and buy more. I could see the internal struggle of her thoughts battling it out on her face. Finally curiousity won.

“Why do we need more clothes?”

I grinned in a gotcha sort of way.

“MOLLY!” I called out. “Come and show Mummy your new outfit.”

Miss5 came into the room wearing the very latest in evening wear – a tea towel, clasped at the back with a clothes peg. When baths began tonight I snuck into the girls room, hid under the doona and tried for a little nap, so when she came in to get dressed I was able to watch for two whole minutes while Miss5 tried to peg the tea towel behind her back. She eventually caught me because I was snickering so loud.

“Tell your Mum why you’re wearing that lovely outfit,” I encouraged Miss5.

Miss5 threw her hands out. “Because I haven’t got any pajamas,” she told her mother solemnly.

Five minutes later I was trying to sneak in a nap on the lounge when Tracey marched into the room with a towel around her mid section and held together by pegs at the back.

“I can’t find a thing to wear,” she told me. “What’s a girl to do?”

Not sure about the girl but I sure as heck-fire know what the guy has to do. I’ve now hidden the credit cards and made a note to buy another bag of pegs this week.